IKON360:

then he should have broken into the team by now. We've seen that some of our matches are so underwhelming that Valverde has played virtually everybody in our team this season once they are fit, except Puig. If Rakitic, Arthur or Vidal is rested, Alena definitely starts yet Puig doesn't. There is a way a player will be so good that everyone will be clamoring for their inclusion. Nobody is clamoring for Puig's inclusion. I think the players aren't hungry enough.

Puig is not in the senior team. He still plays for the B team. If he's brought in the first team, it would be hard for him. Why? because the midfield is soo filled that he would barely play a match in 20. So, EV doesn't want to deny him all the playing time he's getting so that he can continue improving. He would be promoted when the midfield is less congested and when the team isn't pressured. We wouldn't want to rush things, it's dangerous

Sommyroy10:
Valverde: “Messi reserves the first minutes of each match for analysis. During that time, he ignores the ball and walks around the opposition defence, fixing each man’s position in his head. Then, as the game advances, he gets in little by little. He knows perfectly where the rivals’ weakness is”

https://twitter.com/FT/status/1101344616589246464

Full article https://outline.com/SYtfeJ

That guy is indescribable...idk how he does it buh he dazzles me each and every time. Has anyone ever though of what EV just said? How the hell would someone ever think of studying the opponent's defence? It's...crazy!
There has never been and i'm nt sure there would ever be a footballer as great as messi. He's phenomenal and yet has a simple character.

IKON360:

Miranda doesn't offer anything going forward, not pace, crossing or dribbles. I've not watched Cucurella, and I heard Abel Ruiz did well in division two. But if you watch Alena, you will see a determination to succeed and help the team in any position he plays. La Masia need a new coach to instill desire in the young men or the young men need to show desire to succeed at the highest level.

Maybe or maybe not. I guess why la masia is not striving as it used to is because the bar set by recent young maestros is very high with the likes of mbappe, sancho, dembele, jovic and vinicius leading the way. The upcoming lads face a tough task of showing similar capability. Tho puig is a lot of good news, he seems to be the only one at that supposed high level after alena

IKON360:

when we win UCL, it will be a huge joy to see Alba in FIFPro 11. But we still need a proper back up for the guy. Or a plan on what to do if the guy is either suspended, injured or rested.

I guess the plan is to play either roberto or semedo if alba is unavailable. I don't think the club would buy any left back o.
The club would like and preferrably stick with Cucurella and Miranda as long term replacements. It makes sense to me anyways. Im worried bout la masia...tho, alena has been great and a sign of better things, buying too much players would only stifle the progress of the young players. I, personally, would prefer seeing Abel Ruiz to Jovic as Suarez's replacement. Im quite sure he'd deliver.

gustav25:
This Maga club signed Boateng to be a no show player

He's that friend you call when u don't have anybody to help you. He's more like the laaaaast option; and he's the only football player that would play that role without complaining...

IKON360:
on this thread its best to just ignore some people, even myself.

In other news, how can Coutinho be helped? The guy no just wan get ginja, he rarely plays well. Is this spiritual?

He needs deliverance!
I don't know what to say bout that guy. EV is playing him continuously recently; ironically, that seems the only solution to his problem cos idk how worse he'd be if he's left on the bench.

Debroslink:


Just be grateful that Messi masterclass was the saviour as usual for the past 11 years.

And please note that I'm not interested in this La Liga season because it's ours to lose. I'm actually interested in UCL.

If Suarez can just be hot consistently in front of goal, and either or both Dembele and Coutinho step up, the UCL is ours.

#PASSTOMESSI + Good Strikers' output = UCL Success

Winning the ucl and not the domestic league is good but not really good. U dnt win a league that's won with just few matches and be happy with winning it ONLY! Zidane made us understand that. Messi also said the team wants to win everything; which is very possible. I have faith in messi, valverde, the team and the whole of FC Barcelona.

10Dove:
Not everyone lived the pep era bro... best believe this...

pep may have won at least a trophy all the time he was at barca buh even ev here has just completed 1 season and won a double with an 'out of sorts' team. This is second season and we're still on track for the treble. Idk why the hating on him

IKON360:
this is a Barca match that gave me so much joy, and I didn't even watch it but then y'all are still welcome with your self deprecating comments... Oh and haters too are welcome.

u know...i don't know why there is this bad energy everytime. We're fans not critics. We should be supporting the team(players and coach) not doing the opposite. It pains me reading some posts here

Debroslink:


Exactly.

u said he was outcoached? Not true...the formation was the best he could come out with considering our upcoming fixtures.
the errors in first half leading to the goals were the players' fault. He also made a good decision playing coutinho and dembele together bfor replacing the former with alena

Isomerizm:
Do you love Valverde? Many terrible matches, as a result of his lack of coaching talent, you're nowhere to be found. Now the first good result after many terrible results, which wasn't a function of your coach's mental effort, you come out telling us he knows what he's doing.

Even if his subs wasn't the cause of the win, it was as an effect of them.
I keep quiet mostly because the criticism against valverde here is soo much for me to counter. He's not the perfect one buh he's not that bad.

Right now, if u are a barcelona player and u want to do anything other than pass to messi; you are stupid.
You all heard me right!
One more thing, u should know that EV knows exactly what he's doing. He did his substitution thing and we started bossing the game almost immediately

[quote author=Abimloaded post=75877143]LYON: BUILT TO DO DAMAGE TO BARÇA


It has been a very long time since Barcelona traveled to Lyon to do anything except inquire about or sign a French talent.

The last Champions League outing was a 1-1 draw, Thierry Henry netting to answer a lustrous Juninho Olimpico. Back then, Lyon was a monster, the PSG of that era, when the only question was how much they were going to win Ligue 1 by. Then came petrodollars.

Lyon sits third in the table at present, within shouting distance of a surprising Lille, with PSG of course the runaway leaders. Lyon is also a confounding club (a lot like Barça), who can beat PSG then struggle to hold on to a draw against last-place — though far better than its record — Guingamp.

A great many culers are pretty smug about this tie. It’s worth reminding that a lot of people were smug about Manchester United’s chances against Paris St.-Germain, without Neymar and Cavani.


Who wrote this? Kxevin?

Valvershit? I don't think so
The thing that baffles me most about valverde critics is the fact that they don't seem to know what he has done for us.
Dude won a spanish double with a barca team that was suffering from neymar's loss and an unproductive iniesta.
Another thing is every barca player really wants him to renew his contract. The reality is that he isn't leaving barca anytime soon unless if he wants to so u critics just have to live with it. Barca still remains the best and the coach still remains Ernesto Valverde
#ForcaBarca

Alba is lit! Dude is the best LB in the planet presently. The only LB with 10+ assists this season.

Unpopular opinion:
Coutinho is off-form and plays like a mouse that is to carry a lion on its head for 90 mins.
But i do have faith that he would regain his form soon and then leave all of us speechless.
He has it in him, the quality to succeed at barca and i trust EV to help him make manifestation of himself. #VamosCoutinho

homesteady:
I have no problem with resting Messi, I even prefer it. But it becomes counterproductive when Valverde sets up the team to lose in the first leg and expects Messi to magically turn things around in the second leg, which would put more strain on him.

If it's Valverde decision to throw the cup away, I'm okay with it, same with many cules here. Then he shouldn't even start Messi in the 2nd leg.

No coach throws any cup away, not one like EV anyway. I would bet a million dollars that the strongest barca side possible is what he's gonna field against sevilla in d second leg

tesppidd:

are you seriously trying to say you don't understand what I mean?

seriously?

I kinda understand what ev was trying to do by resting messi in the first leg and nt d second.
Let's look at it this way. Before the last match, we've won sevilla just once in our past 4 matches with them in Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan with messi in the team.
The probability we would win d match even with messi in d team was little. I guess ev wanted us to get the best result out of the 1st leg without messi maybe a 2-1 loss or something near. Then, we would be able to use the advantage of camp nou and a well-rested messi to destroy them in the return leg.

zzzzy:
are you people not tired of this cup sef, ucl is our priority now, can't waste energy and risk injuries to key players now. Madrid won 3 ucl in the past 3 years, us it's cdr we were carrying. And i would rather lose this and beat girona.

Even though we really want the treble, we can't risk so much for the CDR. The Girona match is apparently more important than the sevilla match.

Or is he keeping players because of common Lyon?

Which any big team will keep players because of Lyon?
Forget that they won man city in group stage.
Can they battle with man city in this round of sixteen, or can they battle with Bayern or PSG or Liverpool? [/b]

You probably thought the same about Roma last season but look what they did to us.
You shouldn't underestimate any team in the UCL not to talk of one that progressed to the round of 16.
EV is trying to give as much rest as he can to the important players and we shouldn't criticise that.
The reason why we're spending big nowadays is to have a reliable second team that can play in the less important games so as to keep the big boys fresh for the important ones.

[quote author=LastDance post=75055948][b]Yesterday Barcelona was an eyesore to watch.
Our performance was embarrassing and shameful.
I am not sure if we can even win the champions league.
And yes, i put the blame on the coach.
Why Bench Lionel messi in our last league match if you are not going to use him against Sevilla?

Does this even makes sense.
Is busquet injured?
Where was Denis Suarez and Rafinha?
Are they no longer barca players?

What was the coach even thinking, starting a 31 years old footballer that just came to the club and then benching Luis Suarez.

Wait a minute, is he keeping lionel messi and co against Girona in our next league match?[quote]
The lack of risk taking u all accused ev of nt doing is what he is doing and u are still complaining.
He is trying to give the players playing time with the rotation he employed and yet, u are nt satisfied.
Rafinha is injured.
Even with that line up, there was ntin stopping us frm winning. Coutinho & malcom need to step up their game

Kingsley10000:
This is the worst Barcelona team i have ever seen.Sevilla was awesome technically and they had a better ball possession and more attempts

We need to fortify our defence if we want to make a headway in this champions league,and that our keeper he isn't as good as project him to be.

We need to sell coutinho asap,sell this Kevin bouteng (or he should join the fan club),semedo was poo...

we need a very good attacker
Sell coutinho like 100million add like 70million and buy mbappe.what do you think?

From the look of the squad in the first place, u would have known that ev wanted this match for thorough experimenting. I don't know why u keep ranting.
Mind u, we had the better possession, not sevilla. How would that even happen with both Arthur and alena on the pitch?
Our defence was that way cos ev made it to. Semedo isn't poo. He was played as a LB, out of position.
For now, coutinho is going nowhr and mbappe isn't coming anywhr near barca

#10YearsChallenge 10 years ago, we had the best 21 year old in the planet: Lionel Messi 10 years later, we have the best the 21 year old in the planet: Ousmane Dembele

The starting XI i want to see: Semedo - Pique - Lenglet - Alba
Vidal - Alena - Arthur
Malcom - Suarez - Coutinho

And that messi and busquets are been excluded frm the squad. That's the risk taking we've all been clamouring for. If we take copa del rey as the least important competition, why should we stress our talisman over it?
If not for the inconsistent form of coutinho, we shouldn't even be worried about not winning this match.
I personally want to see more of Messi-less Barca

For those that don't know, KPB is the most unexpected and most logical signing at the moment.
Check his profile, his way of playing, and and u would realise that he's the perfect short term backup-striker for suarez.
We all criticised the purchase of paulinho but look at what he turned to be; a very essential part of the squad. I'm sure we would get a better result with KPB in the team. He has all the experience we need and i think the treble is right before us

The former blaugranas are really enjoying their stay at Everton. Digne scored a brace and Mina bagged a goal today.

weedtaker:
When did you start watching football? He was banned in the 2012/13 EPL season for Racist Abuse.

That's about 6 years ago. Since then, has any fresh claims been made against him?

ZTEN:

Finally i am in the right Forum... Salam Alaikum my brothers and sisters in Islam (the right path and Religion of Peace) All Praise and Glory be to Allah (swt) for making us a Muslim.
I bear the Name Muhammad Sideeq, am i welcome?

Yes u are

weedtaker:
Suarez is racist though.

And when last was the issue of him being a racist raised apart from on here?

peterd53:



Do you really mean all what you wrote? Especially the messi part

I think he's taking it just too far. That's how people were labelling ev a racist when he wasn't playing dembele.
How would you call messi and suarez racists when they celebrate their goals with dembele, umtiti and semedo with joy and happiness in their faces. You should take a look at suarez's face when he was celebrating dembele's equaliser against athletico.
I refuse to believe that either of messi and suarez has anything against dembele. It isn't the 10th time or the 100th time that a player is preferring to pass to messi so, i don't know the reason for all the fuss.

And who just abused semedo? Though he isn't as effective as roberto in attack. He is definitely better in defense. Pique has had less work to do on the right when semedo is there and that should tell u why we've kept 4 consecutive clean sheets in our last 4 matches without roberto.